Using government as a marketing tool is an established practice in public relations and agencies that do it well can build thriving practices around it. It's a tool that doesn't make the blog as often as it should because I try to stay away from public policy but today's brief NPR Marketplace segment by Jeremy Hobson has a critical reveal in how the big health companies are playing health care reform.
Dave Shove is a senior health care services analyst at BMO Capital. He says Anthem's error was likely a side effect of its sheer size.
Shove: They insure 35 million people, they're the largest health insurer in the United States. Rate increases are done probably every day. And I doubt at the senior executive level that every rate increase is reviewed.
Well perhaps they will be from now on. Shove says Anthem's PR blunder isn't all bad for the company. The spat with Washington could boost the case for a mandate that all Americans carry insurance. And that is something Anthem wouldn't mind one bit.
Health insurers have spent wisely and well to make sure that health reform leaves them at the center of the system while at the same time using their own unpopularity with voters as a lever to get what they want.
Scott Brown was elected Senator from Massachusetts by promising to be the 41st vote against health care reform. The health insurance companies held fundraisers for his opponent. And yet the coverage of the health reform proposal currently entering reconciliation in Congress is routinely depicted as something they don't want.
Dan Shove's quote peels back the mask - of course they want it to be illegal for consumers to not buy their products, and the perception that they don't want it is probably the best PR the proposal has.
Far from being a "blunder," big rate increases from Wellpoint and Anthem right now, when health reform is having its last big push in Congress, are clearly PR in favor of the bill. This is Spin-Jitsu, my term of art for using you own negatives as talking points, done large.
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